While watching The Wizard of Oz this weekend (because it was on TBS three times) we noticed something we’d never seen before. When Dorothy and the Wizard are in the hot air balloon about to leave the Emerald City, the Tin Man unravels the rope from its post, letting the balloon leave without Dorothy. A simple movie blooper we thought we’d share with you. And while we’re at it, we’ve included a few other mistakes in one of the most classic films of all time. [HINT: Click on the images to get a highlighted view of the blooper or mistake.]

When Dorothy visits Professor Marvel, he has her close her eyes (to be better in tune with the infinite) as he rifles through her basket. He finds a photo of Dorothy and Aunt Em which he holds out in front of him to look at.

However, when we see the photo, he’s not holding it at all!

When the Wicked Witch of the West travels, she does it in a puff of fiery orange smoke…with the help of a trapdoor.

As kids when we watched this movie, we never questioned how they made things appear so real. However, as adults we tend to notice the little ways in which movies are made. For example, when the Scarecrow is still up on the pole, you can see the wire being used to hold him up.

We also notice the different shots it took to make one scene. The Scarecrow’s position on the pole changes throughout the scene.

Throughout the film, and throughout the Scarecrow scene in particular, the length of Dorothy’s hair changes drastically.

Sometimes in order to get a shot right, the filmmakers have to flip the film. It inevitably causes continuity problems, such as the buttons on the Tin Man appearing on the wrong side.

Right side:

Wrong side:

Ever wonder how Judy Garland spent months walking around in high heeled ruby slippers on set? Apparently she didn’t. For a split second during the apple-throwing trees scene, we see Dorothy is wearing plain old black flats.

Everyone has heard the urban legend about the disgruntled munchkin who hung himself on set during filming. The claim is that you can see him kick the bucket just after the scene with the Witch on top of the house throwing fireballs at the Scarecrow. This legend is completely untrue. The real story is that the director stocked the set with live birds, some very large, to make the forest come alive.In fact, in the very next scene you can see a live black bird fly across the screen. That “hanging man” is actually a very large bird who decided to move about.

Later in the film, when the foursome get to the Emerald City and are waiting to see the Wizard, the Lion sings his “King of the Forest” song. The Tin Man creates a crown for him out of a broken flowerpot. The crown gets thrown to the ground when the Gatekeeper tells them they can’t come in to see the Wizard.

Here’s where it lands:

And here’s where it is several moments later in the film:

Here’s one that might have been done on purpose…the sign in the forest warning the travelers to turn around has a grammatical error:

There was only one Witch living in that castle. Her sister lived in the East. It should say “Witch’s Castle,” as in the castle belongs to the Witch.

There are a couple of times in the movie where you can see the normal clothes under the costumes, or bits that make the costumes work. You can see the shirt under the Tin Man’s costume for a split second when he gets dropped by the “spooks” in the forest.

You can also see the block of wood under the Lion’s costume that the tail was attached to:

You can also see the tshirt the Lion is wearing under his costume:

At the Witch’s castle, in the climatic scene where a bucket of water brings her to her demise, the Scarecrow cleverly chops a piece of rope to drop a heavy chandelier on the Witch’s soldiers. The candles in the chandelier appear to be trick candles, like the ones on birthday cakes that keep relighting…

Before they’re dropped:

After they’re dropped:

And magically they have relit themselves!

Toto…one of the greatest trained dogs in movie history. He runs, he jumps, he exposes fradulent Wizards…with the help of a curtain tied to his collar:

And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The Tin Man’s sabatoge of Dorothy’s only ride home:

While we were all busy watching Dorothy chase after Toto who was chasing after the creepy Emerald City lady’s cat, the Tin Man was setting Dorothy up for disaster. Ok, so he wasn’t really ruining Dorothy’s life. It was just the actor helping the scene along. But it’s still pretty interesting to see.

That concludes our list of bloopers and revealing shots of The Wizard of Oz. We hope you’ve enjoyed getting a closer glimpse at one of the most classic movies of all time. If there’s another movie you’d like to see screenshots of bloopers of, write to us at info@moviesnobs.net and we’ll pull together the best of the bloopers and mistakes from that movie for a future post.

14 Comments

In the noplace like home scene, Dorothy’s right nipple is visible through the sheer material of her dress. The dress straps have moved after Aunie M puts the cloth on her head. Doroty’s hair moves from back to front but her nipple remains visible until she sits up and the dress staps have been moved back into place.

The one most blatant flaw in this movie that nobody seems to notice IS: when Dorothy wakes up back in her room at the end and realizes that she just hallucinated the whole Technicolor epic saga, OBVIOUSLY Miss Gulch is STILL ALIVE and will STILL want to kill Toto… AND WE’RE RIGHT BACK WHERE THE WHOLE MESS BEGAN, except now it has become a happy ending somehow!!!

In the scene where Dorothy throws the water on the scarecrow’s arm to put him out, you can see his arm is still on fire after she throws the water. However, in the brief shot following, his arm is not on fire anymore.

I heard that it wasn’t a munchkin that hung himself. It was actually one of the people working with the ropes and stuff in the ceiling area. Kind of similar to what happened in the phantom of the opera, except this was a complete accident :-\

There is something else about the photo that Professor Marvel looks at: he still has it when Dorothy leaves even though he had the chance to put it back and doesn’t have it when he tells her to open her eyes. He is holding it when she dashes off.

I’ve always noticed the tin man letting go of the rope… Stories still come up every now and then from my mom about how I used to scream at the tv telling him to stop so Dorothy could get in. I was too young to remember telling the tin man off on the tv, but my mom says I even screamed myself to a fit of tears a few times when the tin man just “refused to stop”!!

There actually another one that I’ve heard of. It’s when the wicked witch arrives. One person starts to scream before she even poofs into the city. Also, along with the hair length, the hair style changes too.